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I turn to face her completely, bending my leg to rest it on the back seat of the Town Car. “You’re kidnapping me.”
She pauses then, lifting her head to laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous, sweetheart. I love you. You don’t want to be in that house as much as I don’t.”
“Withbothof you. If you’d separate, I’d be happy to stay with you on and off.”
“I will not lose out on seeing my only child grow up by shipping you back and forth. Your place is with me, with yourmother.”
My throat tightens in panic. “I want to go home.”
“Your home is with me.”
“I need to call Brooks.”
Straightening her spine, she refuses to look at me. “I left your cell at home. It was attached to Derrick’s account.”
Clenching my teeth together, I fight the shake in my jaw. “I know his number by heart. Give me your phone.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” she confirms.
“Give me your phone!” I scream.
Her hand whips out to grab my arm. “Control your temper, Henley. Donotspeak to me like that.”
“He’ll be worried,” I whisper, thrown off by her uncharacteristic show of anger toward me.
“And he’ll survive. You can email him when we arrive.”
“Where? Arrive where?”
She waits a beat, straightening her skirt. “London.”
I cough. “London?”
“Yes, I have an old friend there who will help us get established and settled.”
“Dad wouldnothave agreed to this.”
“He doesn’t have to, Henley.”
I stare at her profile, confusion knotting at my brows. “I’m pretty sure that’s how it works, Mother. You need his approval to uproot me like this.”
I watch the line of her throat swallow, her legs crossing only to uncross and settle flat against the floor once again.
“I won’t bore you with the details, but I can assure you,” she speaks, staring out the window, “everything happening right nowisone-hundred-percent legal.”
“What did you do?” I accuse.
She clears her throat in discomfort.
“He’s my dad—”
“He stepped up to the role as we needed him to,” she snaps.
I stare at her reflection in the window, her face still turned purposely away from me.
